The present invention relates to a battering ram device for allowing quick forcible entry into rooms and buildings having doorways, windows or other types of closures. Such devices are commonly used by law enforcement officials to forcibly enter closures that are locked. The devices are also used by firemen who find various closures that are locked during a fire.
The most common form of battering ram is a manually actuated ram of considerable weight which often requires more than one person to swing the ram against the closure. There are many disadvantages with the use of these manually operable rams. First, the effectiveness of the ram is dependent upon the strength of the user(s). Second, a manually actuated ram is very heavy and bulky which makes it difficult to handle and requires a large amount of materials to manufacture. Third, there is no shock or energy absorbing mechanism within a manual ram. Fourth, there is a relatively low upper limit to the amount of force that a manual ram can deliver to a closure. Fifth, once the manual ram penetrates and breaks through a closure there is no mechanism to stop or slow the ram from continuing onwardly and causing considerable unintended damage to anything located beyond the closure. And, sixth, many hits are needed to break through a door which allows time for a potential criminal to escape or dispose of evidence, or allows time for a fire to grow in size. Generally, manual battering rams have fallen considerably short of an ideal instrument for allowing forcible entry through a closure.
Other types of impact devices are used for applications that are quite different from forcible entry through a closure. For example, jack hammers use a pneumatic or hydraulic actuated piston for driving a hammer vertically into the ground. These devices generally are suited for vertical operation, only. The devices use bulky air compressors, and do not include any energy absorbing mechanism. Furthermore, such devices, if used in a forcible entry application, generally cannot deliver a high enough energy per blow to meet most forcible entry applications.
Another prior art impact device uses an explosive cartridge to drive a nail, bolt, or screw. This type of device is specially designed for this specific application, and therefore, does not include any energy absorbing mechanism, and is set to deliver the exact amount of energy to drive a fastener into a specific material without breaking the fastener. Generally, impact driving tools such as bolt driving guns and jack hammers are set for specific applications, such as driving a nail into wood or driving a hammer into pavement. These applications need not consider an energy absorbing device for preventing the impact piece from driving too far.
The aforementioned prior art devices fail to provide an effective battering ram that can meet almost all forcible entry type applications.